From: MERC::"uunet!CRVAX.SRI.COM!RELAY-INFO-VAX" 23-JUL-1992 20:50:24.71 To: INFO-VAX@SRI.COM CC: Subj: DSSI mysteries explained Here is what I have learned from all you folks out there and from spending lots of time at the console prompt. The documentation that came with my KFMSA's and my DECarray (RF disks) was (as usual) pretty useless. A DSSI disk can be thought of as a single disk connected to a single HSC and served to it's host. This means that EACH DSSI disk (ISE) is an HSC and a disk. So, each ISE has it's own nodename (which must be unique), allocation class and a load of other parameters. All DSSI disks show up as device DIAxxx no matter how many DSSI controllers you have or how they are hooked up. The parameters you will be most interested in setting will be: allclass - allocation class (should match the host VAX's) unitnum - the device's unit number (ie. $1$DIAxxx) forceuni - set to 0 if you have changed unitnum nodename - any alphanumeric string up to 8 characters Each KFMSA has two I/O paths (bus 1, bus 2). It is very important that you know which disk is on which bus. It is also very important that you know which XMI slot your KFMSA is in as well. You need all this information in order to tell your 6000 how to boot: BOOT /XMI:A /DSSI_NODE:0 /PORT:1 DI0 Here we see that we want to boot from a KFMSA in XMI slot A on DSSI_NODE 0 (more about that in a minute) PORT (more like BUS) 1 device DI0. We can find the XMI slot out by doing a show config at the console prompt or by looking in the XMI card cage. >>> SHOW CONFIG Type Rev 1+ KA66A (8087) 0005 2+ KA66A (8087) 0005 9+ MS65A (4001) 0084 A+ KFMSA (0810) A4A6 B+ KFMSA (0810) A4A6 C+ KDM70 (0C22) 1911 E+ DEMNA (0C03) 0802 In my particular case you will notice 2 KFMSA's one at XMI slot A and another at slot B. You can now see that it is very important for you to have a good understanding of how your DSSI drives/controllers are configured. Don't just let DEC hook them up and then forget about it. The best method of seeing how things are hooked up is by running diags. Specfically the autosizer and then the DSSI configuration program called EVCXF (this program is only available on the complete diagnostic kit, not the customer diags - get it from DEC and make sure you put a copy of it on your system, it is one of those mandatory type of programs that DEC should have given us in the first place). This program is also used to configure your ISE parameters. Output is show below DSSI sizing underway, please wait... XMI node 0A XMI node 0A XMI node 0B XMI node 0B DSSI ID Bus 1/UUN Bus 2/UUN Bus 1/UUN Bus 2/UUN 0 RF35 1 ***** RF35 9 ***** 1 RF35 2 RF73 7 RF35 10 ***** 2 RF35 3 ***** RF35 11 ***** 3 RF35 4 ***** RF35 12 ***** 4 RF35 5 RF73 8 RF35 13 ***** 5 RF35 6 ***** RF35 14 ***** 6 ***** ***** ***** ***** 7 KFMSA KFMSA KFMSA KFMSA The DSSI ID column is directly related to the DSSI_NODE qualifier of the boot command. So from the above boot command you can see the following: I booted a disk at DSSI ID 0 (/DSSI_NODE:1), BUS 1 (/PORT:1) and XMI slot A. Using this info, you can see from the chart above that I booted an RF35 UUN 1. NOTE: the above chart is the HARDWARE configuration in your machine, the UUN is not the unitnum params but simply some number that increments as you add devices. The unitnum, nodename, allclass is not shown here at all. I would highly suggest that you label all your cables and all your drives in your DECarray cabinet (a good idea at any time). The posibility of not knowing exactly which physical drive is which VMS device is very likely when you have 12 disks in the space of one RA90 and there are only two cables going to them all. On the VMS side, set your sysgen parameter ALLOCLASS the same as your allclass on your ISE's. Also keep an eye on PANUMPOLL and PAMAXPORT even if you don't have a CI. VMS thinks these nodes/devices are coming in over a CI (or at least that is the impression I get) because if you change these params, you can make devices disappear (trust me on this one, I know this from experience - it took me 2 days to find them again). And the fruits of this labor: $ show dev d Device Device Error Volume Free Trans Mnt Name Status Count Label Blocks Count Cnt $1$DIA0: (ISEA1A) Mounted 0 VAXVMSV055 684837 139 1 $1$DIA1: (ISEA1B) Online 0 $1$DIA2: (ISEA1C) Online 0 $1$DIA3: (ISEA1D) Online 0 $1$DIA4: (ISEA1E) Online 0 $1$DIA5: (ISEA1F) Online 0 $1$DIA6: (ISEB1A) Online 0 $1$DIA7: (ISEB1B) Online 0 $1$DIA8: (ISEB1C) Online 0 $1$DIA9: (ISEB1D) Online 0 $1$DIA10: (ISEB1E) Online 0 $1$DIA11: (ISEB1F) Online 0 $1$DIA13: (ISEA2B) Online 0 $1$DIA15: (ISEA2D) Online 0 You might also notice that the node names I chose are 6 characters (old habits) and in the form ISEabc where a = the XMI slot of the KFMSA b = is the bus they are on (1 or 2) c = is what device on the bus (A=1st,B=2nd, so on) I don't know if this is going to help me any but it seemed logical and lends to unique nodenames. Thanks for all the help Matt Gilbert Oberlin College